


Polar Night

by Thassalia



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Pre-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 09:26:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5622088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thassalia/pseuds/Thassalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you have to go the literal ends of the earth to find what you're looking for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Polar Night

**Author's Note:**

> For the Kissing Meme on tumblr. firstwelive requested either a first kiss or a public kiss. Pre-AOU.

 

 

The South Pole is quiet at night, or rather during the designated night hours, as researchers and personnel hold fast to New Zealand time and try to get some sleep. She and Bruce are not the only ones awake, but it feels like it.

* * *

 

_The field was 50 clicks outside of Saskatoon. She'd gotten separated from the others, following the Hulk on a stolen ATV until it had met a nasty fate via firebomb sending her flying. Its destroyer - a guy in a giant bug costume, jet packs on his feet, had been snatched out of the sky and flung across the same field she was now lying in. She didn’t think he was going anywhere. Unfortunately, neither was she._

_Natasha flexed her fingers, tried to move her legs, and couldn’t, trapped by an angry Hulk and a felled tree, one of which was pinning her to the ground through bad timing and a diverted lightening strike, the other stilling her movements as she struggled to divert his attention. She must have cried out when the tree crashed because he was way too close, huffing and banging a solid fist into the ground in the absence of anything else to grab or punch._

_She prepared to be that anything else, breath caught in her throat, but instead of crushing her to death, the Other Guy stifled his roar when she flinched, cocking his massive head to actually look at her--a second bug under the microscope, a pinned butterfly._

_S_ _he wanted to laugh, but couldn’t really breathe._ _Her pulse pounded, hot and heavy, and she thought, “I’m a trapped animal, all I am is prey. He can smell it, the fear. So fuck this, I don’t want to die. Be more than the fear.”_

_She didn’t have anything to lose, lifted her head, secured his attention, and shouted, “Hey, Big Guy, a little help?”_

 

* * *

When the bifrost opened that first time, or rather, the first time anyone had been paying attention, an astrophysicist down at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station flipped the fuck out. He’d been looking for neutrinos and caught the expanding wave of the greatest discovery of his generation, (or at least of that year.) Unfortunately, the premier astrophysicist in that field was a little closer to the event, having run it over in her van.

Two years later, as part of a publicity campaign to cast the Avengers in a good light and keep her company at a comfortable distance from the antics of its founding father, Pepper Potts hires a PR firm. The head of the firm, recognizing the limitless boundaries of opportunity, does her research and suggests sending Thor to the South Pole to shake hands with that same scientist and introduce him to the god who defied and defined a couple of new laws of physics. Dr. Foster had been officially invited as a consulting fellow, as well as to explain the science behind Thor. Jane agrees, not because of the scientist or the PR, but because it's Antarctica, and you can practically touch space from there.

An endless game of polar station telephone later, a molecular biologist over at McMurdo has passed along a formal request to ask Thor to ask his colleague, Doctor Banner, to accompany him to the pole. The biologists hope he'll take a look at something they’ve found in the ice. Pleased to be wanted for his brain and not his brawn, Bruce agrees to the expedition.

After all, what could he break in Antarctica?

 

* * *

_Clint used to do this thing that drove her fucking nuts when they'd first started working together. He'd sing a string of curses and commands to himself , audible to her through the linked coms, stuff like “I don’t fucking want to thread this camera down in this fucking hole because all I’m gonna see is hairy Lithuanian ass, but I’m gonna do it, yeah, yeah, I’m really gonna do it.” He'd provide operatic running commentary, glissandoing tremors of narration to disco and the Ramones and Sinatra because it helped him stay calm._

_He never did it when he was lining up a shot, just during other fieldwork, and Coulson never told him to stop, and finally, it got to the point where his silence during missions made her more nervous than the incessant noise._

_He’d stopped after Loki, like he’d sacrificed that little bit of levity to the mind control and she hadn’t even known she was mourning it until she found herself giving a little stuttery, sing-song set of instructions to the Hulk to mask her nerves as he stomped around the tree branch._

_She’d spent the summer listening to "Abbey Road" with Lila whenever she’d visited, so the commentary was mostly to a rough version of “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” and it wasn’t until she heard Clint giggling in her ear that she realized that she was broadcasting across comms._

_“Fuck all of you,” she muttered, and kept sing-songing because it seemed like the Other Guy was digging it, or at least he was working out how best to grab the tree off of her and a few minutes later, he had it in his hand, and was flinging it behind him, and staring down at her with the same “so there” look that she’d seen Bruce throw at Stark after a particularly frustrating discussion._

* * *

Natasha had heard rumors about the polar expedition, but frankly hadn’t paid much attention until Maria Hill corners her in the SI kitchen a week before they're set to leave, waving a full cup of coffee like a weapon, then pressing it to Natasha’s chest, where it heats the skin along her sternum. She takes the cup from Maria and puts it aside.

Maria is still doing a little bit of strategic security consulting for Stark Industries on top of directing Not Exactly SHIELD, and her weekly briefings with Stark and Potts always put her on edge.

“You have to go with them.”

Natasha raises an eyebrow. “Who? Where?”

“They…Thor and Banner and Dr. Foster. I need a liaison who can both deal with the inevitable paperwork when they blow up the South Pole, and also mitigate other circumstances that might come up.”

Natasha shakes her head. “It’s PR, manhandling a fancy telescope and looking at some slides. What kind of other circumstances are you anticipating?”

Maria gives her a flat look that nonetheless contains multitudes.  “I had to talk Stark out of making it a group vacation.”

Natasha grimaces.

“Look, it’s 10 days tops. Travel’s the biggest headache, but they’re forecasting decent weather to get in and out of the station, and it’d be good publicity for this initiative – seeing Thor at the bottom of the world and Banner doing something useful but harmless. Instagram them, find a penguin, see the southern lights, if there is such a thing. Hell, I’ll shell out to send Foster’s intern. She can Tweet them, or whatever the fuck is required.”

“What do I get out of this?”

“My eternal goodwill?”

"Not worth it. Why me? Why not you?"

“I really, really hate Antarctica. That endless night thing creeps me out.”

Natasha keeps an eyebrow raised.

"Fine," Maria sighs. "Banner wants to go, but he's freaking out.  I think Thor is plenty of back-up if something goes wrong, but Banner's a nervous nelly."

"And?"

"He agreed to go if you'd go with them."

It makes sense.  Plus, she knows he wants this. She hasn't been paying attention to the plans, but she remembers the awe in his voice when he was talking about what the scientists think they'd found, the burst of discussion with Jane.  So little anyone can give him, and she can give him this.

She sighs though, makes it a show, because it's still babysitting and a metric fuckton of sitting on transport to get there. “Fine. I'll go. But I'm not flying coach.”

 

* * *

_Everything hurt, but she managed to haul herself to her feet. The Other Guy just kept standing there, staring, and Natasha put her hand up and said, “Thank you,” and meant it._

_“You did good today,” she continued, “Plus you didn’t kill me, and I really appreciate that.” Her voice was shaky with spent adrenaline. “Maybe you should sit down, though. Rest a little?”_

_He gave her a rough smirk, but turned back to the tree, and then sat down like he was taking her suggestion to heart. She held her breath, the air quivered, and the big green body contracted, shrinking back into the pink, shiny, mostly naked form of his human iteration, who promptly fell over onto his side._

_Limping over to Bruce, she sat down, propping him back up. He was groggy and goose-bumpy, and she leaned against his back so he’d have something to lean back against, and said, “So I guess we know where you swing on the whole Beatles and Rolling Stones thing.”_

_He cracked a yawn, “Yeah, I’m really more of a Pink Floyd guy.”_

_She rubbed her shoulder blades against his, “Of course you are, but I’m never, ever going to sing Comfortably Numb to get you back to normal.”_

_“Fair enough,” he said and passed out against her._

_After that, the fear still choked her, burning in her lungs and chest. But it was easier to remember it was Bruce in there, sarcastic, and sardonic, and kind of hilarious. It was easier to see his rage in the Hulk’s eyes, the way that Bruce flinched from touch, even when he craved it, the way that understanding would flush over his face like this exquisite joy when he was working, the way his mouth would curl when Tony made him laugh._

_They practiced cues and tics and verbal manipulations, and sometimes she still got backhanded into a stream, and when that happened, he’d stay up all night, hating himself, and she’d limp around and try to stiffen her nerves, but she didn’t take it personally._

_Because sometimes, more often than not, the Other Guy would give her that assessing look, and grind his gears hard while considering his options, and while you couldn’t call it always, mostly he would stand down._

* * *

Flying commercial with Thor is always a circus–-endless rounds of drinks for anyone he's sitting by, loud vigorous conversation, lots of selfies with passengers, flight attendants, sometimes the pilot. This is no different, although Natasha can tell he's trying to temper himself. Foster is a bad flyer, though, so Lewis dopes her up on Ambien, lets her sleep against Thor’s arm like a pretty, drooly, puppy for the flight down to New Zealand, while she utilizes the free Wifi to do whatever it is she does.

The effort of the trip was something the publicist had insisted on - that the Avengers, even bankrolled by Tony Stark, weren't too elite to fly commercial on a press tour. No one bothered to mention that Air New Zealand was funding the flight in return for a photo op with a bunch of kiwis and some leftover orcs and hobbits.

Bruce keeps his headphones on for most of the trip, tucked into the business class pod next to Natasha's, keeping his cool.  She's got a tranquilizer packet in a modified bite around her wrist in case of emergency. They practiced with it at the Tower, a measure of safety.

Natasha spends the flight reviewing the latest bunch of intel from a data dump out of Chechnya and the Middle East, separating potential Hydra efforts from the more human-minded atrocities, feeling a little sick with it by the time they were three or four hours from their destination.

She orders a drink from the steward and is picking at a cookie when Bruce wakes up, takes off his headphones, and looks at her.

“Take a break,” he says. “You look beat.”

“Way ahead of you.”

He smiles at her, and she feels the pull of an answering grin, and he brushes his knuckles against the back of her hand, a hit of warmth that slides up her arm.

It’s been like this lately, gravitating towards the other like rotational orbit, bumping and glancing, small smiles and fluttery touches. Getting so close, and stuttering a little at the pull.

* * *

_It was a harder task at first, to summon up the nerve to go sit by Bruce at the end of one of those long days, to push past his reserve and self-loathing and loneliness when what she wanted is a bath with Epson salts, and a glass of decent wine, and some shitty tv or a good book; to step away from the job. But her life had always been the job, so she tried to shift the lens and figure out what she could have and be outside of work. Despite her initial reservations, his warm gaze, his deep quiet and steady kindness tempted her, but it was the fundamental truth that made her ignore the pull of water and wine. She was looking for ways to leave the job aside, but he couldn’t ever really the job, it was baked in._

_Natasha dropped down beside him one night with a pack of cards and a wooden board, and he barked out a laugh. “Jesus, I haven’t played cribbage since grad school.”_

_She lifted a shoulder. “Coulson taught us. We’d play three-handed. Clint hums when he counts, so I always beat him, but it’s fun.”_

_The game that night quickly turned into a running tournament, folding in Stark when he was in New York, teaching Steve, giving up on Thor whose fingers were too big to move the tiny pegs and found it dull. Bruce was a reasonable loser, although he didn’t lose often - he cheated as vigorously as she did, and the competition was fierce. Other times they’d play War, or Spit, or Gin Rummy, games she’d learned from Clint’s kids, and Bruce stopped flinching at her presence, and she stopped minding his, started to seek him out as a reward and not an obligation._

_He’d buy her pizza when no one else wanted pizza again, and took her to see the Pink Floyd laser show in a warehouse in Brooklyn, which they both agreed was the nerdiest thing either of them had ever done, but the night ended with darts at a dive bar, and an easy train ride home and she found that she looked forward to the slow slide of his smile, how he rubbed his eyes when he was tired, and the way he'd brush her hand with his, checking in with a glancing touch when he didn’t have anything to say._

_She fell asleep on his shoulder one night on the ride home from a mission where she’d run from one place to another all goddamned day, tumbled into an icy stream, and nearly ran over Clint, scraping the side of her body along a gravel road to avoid him. But they’d never had to call Bruce into the field, so it really wasn’t that bad a day._

_She’d just sort of leaned towards him in the seat while he was reading, and he was warm, and solid, and she just stayed that way, slumped against him. She woke up a few minutes later to find his coat draped over her front, knees curled up on the seat, her body tucked into his side. His fingertips rested on her shoulder, and he was so still that she suspected it was the stiffness that woke her. Sleepy and finally warm, she glanced up at his face, catching sight of something dark and wanting and a little sad in his eyes, but she felt him relax in a slow, incremental wave as she stayed where she was._

_She was exactly where she wanted to be. He smelled good, certainly better than she did, like soap and wool, a little musky from agitation, but human and lovely, and she tilted her head enough to press her mouth gently against the join of his neck and shoulder, a glancing kiss, subtle like a bruise and it shuddered through him._

_She felt an answering internal jolt of realization. She’d LIKED that, liked making him shiver._

* * *

He says, “Here, give me your hand.”

She rests it, palm up, in his broader grip and he slides along her wrist to find the pulse point, then centers his thumb over the vein, pressing just enough to hurt. There’s a sharp flare of pain, and then her whole body softens, tension draining. He can see it, and his smile is slow, rich and full of something she’s not ready to name, but it flutters his own pulse, and she can feel a hitch in her breath. He doesn’t let go of her hand. She turns her palm, slides it so she can lace her fingers through his, a gentle grip, but sturdy.

“Works both ways,” he says, soft, a little throaty. A beginning, then, in this long stretch of air travel, in these fleeting innocent touches.

“I wonder,” she says, “How else the Other Guy might like to be soothed.”

“He likes music,” Bruce says, “so maybe the rumors are true.”

* * *

_She will take him to bed some time in the future, when he no longer fears himself, or at least trusts that she will take him down, take him out if he proves a risk; or rather, when the want has built so full, and tight, and taut that they are poor purveyors of risk management, willing to do anything to answer the need between them._

_He will brush his mouth over those pulse points, pressing down against her wrists, the swell of her arch, the center of her sternum like he’s soothing her, unkeying her, their roles reversed, swapping her assassin skin out for the woman inside and when she comes, it will be like a wave–-dissolving, rolling and endless, full of delirious joy._

* * *

When they get to the South Pole, there are microbes and stars waiting. Lewis takes photos, posts Bruce grinning into a microscope, Thor pointing a hammer to the sky, Jane disheveled and beautiful in pajamas and a telescope the size of a pony.

Natasha does not allow herself to be photographed, even now, when it can’t hurt anything. In New Zealand, she'd ducked behind a giant Samoan man who'd played an orc. Here, she covers her face with a paper penguin on a stick.

Lewis tags her in the post anyway, and she vows to make her suffer. But later.

Bruce is sitting against a desk in the middle of the polar night, his parka unzipped, looking up at the sky. She nudges him with her boot, handing over two mugs of scalding if powdery hot chocolate, and sits down next to him, taking back her mug, and propping it on her knees.

He’d made her look through the electron microscope earlier, to marvel at the life the station researchers had found deep in the ice, a miracle as wondrous as the shiny god eating cookies at a table in the south pole, as astonishing as a gate between universes, and she’d touched Bruce's face when he looked up at her to giver her a turn because he was starting to tear up a little.

“You’re a sap, Banner,” she'd said.

“Life,” he'd said, awe softening his voice, “it finds a way. Bigger and smaller than anything we can conceive.”  His smile is only a little bit bitter, and even that is something she can hold.

That awe erased a lot of the grainy distaste she'd been carrying around from the intel dump, the discomfort with the babysitting gig, the disorientation of being out here in the ice as the station tilted towards semi-permanent dark.  Anything that put that wondrous look on his face is something she'll fight tooth and claw for, even if it is microscopic life forms that barely look like more than dust to her.

"They're beautiful," she'd said.

Now, she drinks grainy hot chocolate with him at the bottom of the world while the researchers sleep, her own parka zipped tight as Bruce tells her about neutrinos, decaying particles, and how when you look up and out, the atmosphere is so thin you can see the swirl of galaxies. It’s only partly metaphorical.

“How does it feel,” she asks, “to not be the most unlikely thing in the room?”

“Pretty fucking amazing, actually,” he says, and she can hear in his voice that it’s true. It’s all she needs.

She takes his hot chocolate, and keeps his awe, and puts the mugs beside him on the ground, kneels and frames his face in her hands. She runs her thumbs over his cheekbones, as his hands slide under her parka to rest on her hips.

She puts a hand in the center of his chest, feeling his heart, and his heat, and leans in. His eyelashes flutter against her cheek, but she keeps her eyes open until the last second. She wants to see this. His lips are cool and soft as she brushes his mouth lightly. He smiles against the touch, seeking her out, and she moves in again, giddy with the flutter of contact, the slippery, delicious shiver of breath, and taste, and teeth and tongue. The kiss is gentle, but full of intent.

His grip on her tightens, and she closes her eyes, sinks into the heady sensation. The universe is glittering behind her, and another one is opening up in front of her, shining with possibility.


End file.
